Reduce starter battery drain

[Healthy Van Dwellers]

I am trying to figure out ways to save my starter battery from discharging as much as possible. 200w solar, 155ah AGM battery, and 400w inverter should all be hooked up in the next week or so. My concern is stuff like having the doors to my Kia Sedona open, causes the starter battery to discharge due to door/dash lights. The dome lights in the back stopped working pretty soon after we started sleeping in it. Basically I am looking for information about disconnecting those extra lights and hopefully turning off dummy/dash lights when doors are open. I have tried searching but am not having any success. Thanks in advance for any tips or suggestions.

 

[John61CT]

You can fit a general LVD that isolates that battery before voltage drops too far to start the engine. Beefing up that Starter, if a true deep-cycle can be made to fit, would allow it to help the House bank, either from the top each cycle, or maybe with an ACR let it act as Reserve only when needed.

Or figure out your vehicle accessory circuits back to the panel, and move some offenders over to be fed by House, or put switches on them.

Or remove the light bulbs.

 

[Trebor English]

You can replace all the lights with led lights.  That will help.  My Ford Windstar notices when a door opens or closes and turns on some relays for 30 minutes.  A solution is to disconnect the battery.  There are switches for that. Some vehicle computers get messed up by having power off.

 

[Optimistic Paranoid]

If - and only if - you have enough solar panel capacity, Morningstar makes a 25 amp DUAL battery Sunsaver controller that can be programmed to send 90% to the house battery and 10% to the engine battery.

 

[MikeRuth]

An Idea that I'm going to try on my Ford e-150 is to make a retaining strip that keeps the button on the door frame closed.
Now in my case and your's is clearance since were adding a piece on top of the button switch.

I'm thinking of using the thinnest yet stiff enough piece of material that I can screw to the door frame and then rotate it over the button when I want to hold it in.

Another possibility would be to locate the fuse that protects the light circuit and hopefully nothing else important and add a switch to that circuit.

Just some thoughts.

 

[ArtW]

Locate the dome light fuse and pull it when you settle for the night
Actually a lot of modern vehicles have either a switch that will turn it off, or a time delay automatic lights out function

 

[GypsyDogs]

...how about a piece of duct-tape over the push-switch that lets the car know the door is open?
easy to do - easy to undo

 

[Bdog1]

Most vehicles have IOD fuse that covers all the parasitic draw. ( ignition off draw). Car still runs and functions w/o it. You will loose radio presets.

Sometimes there's a sequence that puts a car in "shipping mode" doing the same thing without pulling the fuse. You need to check with the techs in the shop at your dealer for that. Don't bother asking in the office , they won't know.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Healthy Van Dwellers]

There was indeed a fuse for disabling interior electronics on the drivers area fuse panel. Pulled the 'shunt' and all is right again.

 

[deadwood]

Every time I open a door on my Transit it will turn on cargo lights as well as power up all the 12v outlets and stay on for about 20 min. I've been working on the van on and off the last year and a half. There are days were my cargo lights are on all day long as well as the dash cam coming on and door interior lights as well. I've never once had a problem with my battery.

The Transit has an option for dual AGM batteries as the starting battery and the lights are all LED. So a I would check to make sure all your interior lights are LED because they draw so much less power and I would look into having a more robust starting battery then the manufacturer calls for.

My biggest issue with the lights coming on is not the power consumption it is the fact that I might not want them to come on at all if I were maybe urban camping at the time. This would be my number one reason for making sure the lights don't come on.

 

[SternWake]

My '89 has a time delay relay. UNless the headlight switch is rotated all the way clockwise past the detente, even with the dome lights switched off, there is a 0.2 amp drain.

I would never known about this if I did not have a battery monitor and noticed an additional 0.2 amp load with doors open, even with dome lights off.